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Desire and Despair… the foundation of a photo shoot

My newest client is what any photographer dreams of… a client who trusts you completely and turns full control of the shoot over to you, the photographer. Then the magic happens… Yes that all sounds so surreal but it can happen. Recently I posted a quote on facebook that “sometimes a beautiful photograph is simply a collaboration between the photographer and the subject” and this is so true with my most recent shoots.

My client initially approached me about photographing her as a 50s style pin-up girl, much like the famous paintings by Gil Elvgren that she so admires. I was intrigued because these are both classy and beautiful, yet also following my style as a photographer in a sense. As the conversation progressed in our first meeting, we started discussing poses and sets and then before we knew it the entire job had turned into 6 different sets but all with the basic theme of the 50s style pin-up girl paintings. The first series of my postings is at the Laundry Mat. I wanted a story but at the same time I wanted beautiful, unusual photographs of my client. All of the shots taken still have that 1950s feel of a woman in that era, yet showing a hint of burning desire lurking in her soul . A woman who was essentially bridging the gap between WWII and the unknown decade yet to come of the 1960s. The 1950s woman was struggling to find a place in society after experiencing the freedom and responsibilities of the second world war. I looked to capture that conflicting voice of those women in the pictures at the laundry mat. I chose this particular location because it evokes both a place of burden and an escape from the “household” of reality.